Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

Ok. First off, thanx to mumbles I know that I left a minor file out of the Last .zip file. Here is the corrected file:

AoWv0_81.zip

2nd: Pax, if you're still interested in working on this with me, I'm leaning towards the Hybrid model of the mQNP. 9 levels of ship construction is easily divided into 3 levels of Engine sizes. Oh and I can't find your e-mail addy anywhere, so if you could send me a quick email, I'd appreciate it.

3rd: If you read the Alpha tester thread, you may have noticed that I mentioned a departure from the standard SY model. This is what I was thinking of:

---3 levels of SYfacilities, with very low build/repair rates, researchable thru the SY tech field.
---9 levels of base mountable SYcomponents, small and with low build rates. Components increase in size as tech levels advance (but the build rate/kt ratio improves with tech increases). They are researched thru the Ship Construction tech field. They have minor repair abilities. Base SYcomponents are NOT limited to one per ship. So their buildrates are stackable. (If I understand the game mechanics correctly)
---3 levels of ship mountable SYcompontents, larger than and with faster build rates than Base mountable Versions. However, they are intended to be considerably less effiecient than a dedicated Base SY. The build rate/kt ratio improves with tech increases; or alternately, increased tech levels may just reduce the maintenance penalty (see below). They're limited to one per ship. They might also include a minor repair ability. They are researched thru the SY tech field. I haven't yet decided whether they will be more or less efficient than Planetary SYs.
---Each SY tech level (or possibly Base Construction instead of SY tech) also yields mounts that reduce the size of Base SY components slightly.
---I'm also considering adding a maintenance penalty to the components to make them cheap to build, but expensive to maintain and run. I have yet to decide whether to make the penalty decrease with tech level, remain steady, or tie it to the buildrate/kt ratio.

The general idea is that Planetary SYs would be just about useless. You need them (or a ship based SY) to build your first orbital Base SY, but after that, you'd probably be better off scrapping it to open up the facility slot. Most ship construction would occur at Base SYs. Mobile SYs give up a lot of efficiency in exchange for that mobility, and would probably have steaper maintenance penalties than the stationary variety (after compensating for the base hull mainteance bonus).

I'm hoping to keep it down to about 5 SY components per base in order to avoid absurdly high repair rates. Thus the gradual size increases, to somewhat keep up with the implementation of larger base sizes.

Of coarse, this whole concept hinges on the assumptions that SY build rates stack and that I can remove the one per ship tag on the SY components. Assumptions I haven't tested yet.

OK, are there any questions/comments/observations?

[ January 20, 2003, 12:49: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

You can not have a ship or base design with more than 1 SY. Only planets can be set to use the SY Expansion Projects.

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

Fyron is correct there DL. The Space Yard component doesn't have a one per ship restriction to remove even. If you look in the components file it says none on that line. The one per ship limit is a hard code thing.

You could simulate it though by having several different space yard comps at each tech level, with progressivly more construct ability and progresivly larger size as well.

Geoschmo

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

"The one per ship limit is a hard code thing."

So is the one per planet thing, but SJ found a way around that. The retrofit code is probably a bit tighter though. More easily abuseable.

Phoenix-D

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

So I discovered. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif It was a cool idea, though (in my admittedly heavily biased opinion). Oh well, that just saves me the trouble of trying to balance the new SY system! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

Is it possible to mod a componet/facility that has ship building ability, without it being a shipyard?

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, the ability is what defines it as being a shipyard. That is what the game is looking for when limiting the number of them allowed. It's not simply looking at a name or something.

Geoschmo

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

geo, OK, Thanks! Was just wondering!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

Dumbluck,

Please see my post in the Alpha testing thread.

KirbyEF

[ January 30, 2003, 21:53: Message edited by: kirbyef ]

Re: New Mod: The Art of War Mod
 

No, I haven't forgotten. I've just been a little busy in the Real World. I did have one other thing I wanted to do with the economic issues before moving on to Fighter/PDC/Missle balance: Population bonuses.

If any of you programming gurus would like to help with this one, I'd greatly appreciate it. I can describe what I want the production/construction curves to look like, but I'm not relishing the 3 hours it would take me with a hand-held calculator to figure it all out for every step up...